Tag Archives: Saudi Arabia

Congress to receive 28 classified pages of 9/11 report today

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks during a media briefing on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., July 7, 2016.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Congress on Friday will receive 28 classified pages of the official report on the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said.

“The documents are coming to Congress today,” she said at her weekly news conference, adding that she was not sure when the material would be made public.

Some U.S. lawmakers have alleged the 28 pages link Saudi government officials to the 2001 attacks. CIA chief John Brennan said in June that people should not take them as evidence of Saudi complicity.

The still-classified section of the report on the attacks, informally the 9/11 Commission Report, is central to a dispute over whether Americans should be able to sue the Saudi Arabian government for damages. The Office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence has been reviewing the material to see whether it could be declassified.

Legislation allowing such lawsuits has been making its way through Congress. President Barack Obama has said he will not sign any such measure. His administration says the legislation could pose a national security threat to the country and is opposed by important U.S. allies.

(Reporting by David Morgan and Patricia Zengerle; Writing by Mohammad Zargham and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Saudi Arabia’s new jihadists; poorly trained but hard to stop

A damaged car is seen after a blast near the U.S. consulate in Saudi Arabia's second city of Jeddah July 4, 2016. Picture taken July 4, 2016. Saudi Press Agency/

By Angus McDowall

RIYADH (Reuters) – Technical hitches limited the death tolls in three suicide attacks in Saudi Arabia but the apparent coordination of the blasts suggests jihadis have the tools to sustain their bombing campaign.

Three young Saudis detonated explosive vests near a Shi’ite mosque in Qatif last Monday, killing only themselves, while an attack by another young Saudi suicide bomber at the Prophet’s mosque in Medina killed four policemen.

Before dawn the same day a 34-year-old Pakistani driver had blown himself up in a car park outside the U.S. consulate in Jeddah but only injured two security guards.

“Technically these people are poor. Psychologically they are very poor. Training-wise they are poor,” said Mustafa Alani, an Iraqi security expert at the Jeddah-based Gulf Research Centre with ties to the Saudi Interior Ministry.

“Out of five suicide bombers, four killed themselves for nothing.”

Nevertheless, that five individuals were able to build or acquire explosive vests and to plot three attacks on the same day points to a command chain and supply network that presents a formidable threat, security analysts say.

The attacks were not claimed by any group although the government believes Islamic State is responsible after detaining 19 suspects linked to the five attackers.

The coordination but poor training appear to be a sign of Islamic State’s operational model in Saudi Arabia, recruiting would-be jihadists online and managing plots remotely with minimal involvement in training.

An Islamic State recruit inside the kingdom will then seek friends or relatives to join him in an attack, while his handlers in Syria or Iraq suggest a target and help to provide explosives and instructions on how to make a bomb.

That low profile makes it very difficult for the security forces to identify networks or uncover attacks before they are carried out, and Islamic State’s minimal investment in operations means it has little to lose if a plot goes awry.

SLEEPER CELLS

Unlike during an al Qaeda campaign a decade ago there is no network of interconnected cells under a central leadership in Saudi Arabia that can be infiltrated or rolled up by the security services.

“They ask young people to stay in Saudi Arabia and create sleeper cells and this is a very dangerous thing because you do not know who is in a sleeper cell or who is a lone wolf,” a senior Saudi security officer told Reuters last year.

Traces of nitroglycerine were found at the locations of each of last week’s explosions and preliminary investigations suggest the explosives were of a type used by the military.

Police at present believe they came from the same source, said Interior Ministry spokesman Major General Mansour Turki.

“We’re talking about highly organized attacks under a central command (outside Saudi Arabia) and with a chain of supply,” said Alani.

However, he said the lack of an in-country leadership able to carefully select and groom recruits, provide training, centralize bomb making and prepare attackers psychologically meant that many of its operations were ineffective.

The attackers in Jeddah and Medina were both approached by police in car parks near their likely targets because their nervous behavior attracted suspicion. The Jeddah bomber detonated his device too far from the police to kill them.

After the attack in Qatif, police found explosive packs intact, Alani said, indicating that only the detonators had exploded, killing the bombers but not causing wider damage. Turki said he was unable to confirm that some devices did not properly explode.

CRACKDOWN

Saudi Arabia’s success in clamping down on al Qaeda since its 2003-06 attacks has forced Islamic State towards its model of remote control for lone wolves or sleeper cells.

Western diplomats say the kingdom has developed one of the most formidable counter-terrorism operations in the Middle East under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Interior Minister.

The security police, known as the Mubahith, closely monitor Saudis with suspected connections to militants and have detained over 15,000 suspects since the al Qaeda campaign began.

The rate of arrests slowed near the end of last decade but accelerated again after 2011, when Arab Spring uprisings and civil wars across the Middle East impelled thousands of young Saudis to head overseas to join the fight with many returning home after, officials said.

“The Saudis have come up with a successful strategy with dealing with this sort of problem and they have mounted a highly effective public education campaign in the mosques,” said former U.S. ambassador Chas Freeman.

“And second, they have very effective internal security mechanisms that have enabled them to spot people in the process of turning to terrorism.”

Security tactics have been accompanied by softer measures too. So-called “rehab” centers for militants employed Wahhabi clerics to preach that obedience to the king trumped individual decisions to go and fight in defense of Muslims overseas.

Meanwhile, Saudi media were given access to young men who had returned from fighting overseas whose stories of the brutal reality of life among jihadist groups were broadcast in an effort to dissuade others from militancy.

ONLINE RECRUITS

But sympathy towards fellow Sunni Muslims fighting the war in Syria has created a new generation of young Saudi jihadists.

They support the idea of an Islamic State caliphate and view Saudi Arabia’s rulers and the army and clergy which back them as infidels who betray true Islam.

The government crackdown has forced Islamic State has found new ways to reach potential recruits from a distance, for example through online computer games that are hard for security services to monitor.

Mohammed, a 15-year-old in Riyadh, was contacted by jihadists while playing games on his desktop computer and messaging other online players, his father told Reuters earlier this year, asking to keep his anonymity.

He was chatting with someone who started to send him messages about the injustice faced by Sunni Muslims in Iraq and Syria. “Come play with us for real,” the person said, and sent Mohammed some films showing Islamic State attacks.

His parents blocked the contact. Reuters was not able to confirm who had contacted Mohammed.

“Daesh is trying to be very active in social media, but I think we are winning thanks to their stupid operations. How can you defend somebody who kills innocents in mosques?” said the senior security official.

(Story refiles to add dropped word in paragraph 10.)

(Additional reporting by Yara Bayoumy in Washington; editing by Anna Willard)

Saudi king vows to fight religious extremists after bombings

United Nations (U.N.) High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein

GENEVA/DUBAI (Reuters) – The king of Saudi Arabia warned his country would strike with an “iron hand” against people who preyed on youth vulnerable to religious extremism, a day after suicide bombers struck three cities in an apparently coordinated campaign of attacks.

In a speech marking Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that celebrates the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, King Salman said a major challenge facing Saudi Arabia was preserving hope for youth who faced the risk of radicalization.

“We will strike with an iron hand those who target the minds and thoughts… of our dear youth,” Salman, 80, said.

Four security officers were killed in Monday’s attacks that targeted U.S. diplomats, Shi’ite Muslim worshippers and a security headquarters at a mosque in the holy city of Medina. The attacks all seem to have been timed to coincide with the approach of the Islamic Eid holiday.

The U.N. human rights chief on Tuesday described the bombing outside the Prophet Mohammed’s Mosque in Medina as “an attack on Islam itself” and many Muslims expressed shock that their second-holiest site had been targeted.

No group has claimed responsibility but Islamic State militants have carried out similar bombings in the U.S.-allied, Sunni Muslim-ruled kingdom in the past year, targeting minority Shi’ites and Saudi security forces.

Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and a member of the Jordanian royal family, delivered his remarks via a spokesman in Geneva.

“This is one of the holiest sites in Islam, and for such an attack to take place there, during Ramadan, can be considered a direct attack on Muslims all across the world,” he said. “It is an attack on the religion itself.”

ATTACK UNNERVES SAUDIS

Militant attacks on Medina are unprecedented. The city is home to the second most sacred site in Islam, a mosque built in the 7th century by the Prophet Mohammed, the founder of Islam, which also houses his tomb.

Attacks on Mecca, the holiest place in Islam, have been extremely rare. The Al Saud ruling family considers itself the protectors of both sites. Islamic State says the Saudi rulers are apostates and has declared its intention to topple them.

Saudis were rattled by the rare, high-profile attack.

“I apologize to everyone if I don’t congratulate you this Eid,” Khaled bin Saleh al-Shathri, a Saudi businessman, wrote on Twitter. “I am shocked by the deaths of five of my brothers and the wounding of four others as they guarded the holiest places.”

Iran, the region’s major Shi’ite power, also condemned the attacks.

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and anti-terror tsar, Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz, sought on Tuesday to reassure Saudis of the country’s security.

“The security of the homeland is good, it is at its highest levels and thanks be to God it gets stronger every day,” the state news agency SPA quoted him as saying during a visit to some of the wounded in the Jeddah attack.

Prince Mohammed has been credited for ending a bombing campaign by al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia between 2003 and 2006.

Monday’s bombings happened days before the end of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dawn until dusk.

Saudi security officials say Islamic State’s supporters inside the kingdom mainly act independently from the group in Iraq and Syria, its main areas of operations.

Salah al-Budair, the imam of the Prophet’s Mosque, warned young people about being lured by the “malignant” ideology of Islamic State. “(The bomber) is an infidel who has sold himself to the enemies of his religion and his country,” he said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, Sami Aboudi, Mostafa Hashem and Tom Finn; Writing by Noah Browning; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky/Mark Heinrich)

U.N. calls bombing near Saudi holy Mosque an attack on Islam

Muslim worshippers gather after a suicide bomber detonated a device near the security headquarters of the Prophet's Mosque in Medina

GENEVA/DUBAI (Reuters) – The U.N. human rights chief on Tuesday called a suicide bombing outside the Prophet Mohammad’s Mosque in the Saudi city of Medina an attack on Islam itself and many Muslims expressed shock that their second-holiest site had been targeted.

Three apparently coordinated suicide attacks on Monday targeted Medina, the U.S. consulate in Jeddah and the largely Shi’ite Muslim city of Qatif on Monday. At least four security officers were killed.

No group has claimed responsibility but Islamic State has carried out similar bombings in the U.S.-allied kingdom in the past year, targeting Shi’ites and Saudi security forces.

Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and a member of the Jordanian royal family, delivered his remarks via a spokesman in Geneva.

“This is one of the holiest sites in Islam, and for such an attack to take place there, during Ramadan, can be considered a direct attack on Muslims all across the world,” he said, referring to the Islamic holy month.

“It is an attack on the religion itself.”

Militant attacks on Medina are unprecedented. The city is home to the second-holiest site in Islam, a mosque built by the Prophet Mohammed, the founder of Islam, which also houses his tomb.

Attacks on Mecca, the most sacred place in Islam, have also been extremely rare. The Al Saud ruling family considers itself the protectors of both sites. Islamic State says the Saudi rulers are apostates and has declared its intention to topple them.

Saudis were rattled by the rare, high-profile attack.

“I apologize to everyone if I don’t congratulate you this Eid,” Khaled bin Saleh al-Shathri, a Saudi businessman, wrote on Twitter.

“I am shocked by the deaths of five of my brothers and the wounding of four others as they guarded the holiest places.”

Iran also condemned the attacks.

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and anti-terror tsar, Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz, sought on Tuesday to reassure Saudis of the country’s security.

“The security of the homeland is good, it is at its highest levels and thanks be to God it gets stronger every day,” the state news agency SPA quoted him as saying during a visit to some of the wounded in the Jeddah attack.

Prince Mohammed has been credited for successfully ending a bombing campaign by al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia between 2003-2006.

Monday’s bombings came days before the end of the holy month of Ramadan when Muslims fast from dawn until dusk.

Saudi security officials say the Islamic State’s supporters inside the kingdom mainly act independently from the group in Iraq and Syria.

Salah al-Budair, the imam of the Prophet’s Mosque, warned young people about being lured by the “malignant” ideology of Islamic State.

“(The bomber) is an infidel who has sold himself to the enemies of his religion and his country.”

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, Sami Aboudi and Tom Finn; Writing by Noah Browning; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

Suicide bombers hit three Saudi cities

Muslim worshippers gather after a suicide bomber detonated a device near the security headquarters of the Prophet's Mosque in Medina

By Angus McDowall

RIYADH (Reuters) – Suicide bombers struck three cities across Saudi Arabia on Monday, in an apparently coordinated campaign of attacks as Saudis prepared to break their fast on the penultimate day of the holy month of Ramadan.

The explosions targeting U.S. diplomats, Shi’ite worshippers and a security headquarters at a mosque in the holy city of Medina follow days of mass killings claimed by the Islamic State group, in Turkey, Bangladesh and Iraq. The attacks all seem to have been timed to coincide with the approach of Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that celebrates the end of the fast.

A Saudi security official said an attacker parked a car near the U.S. consulate in Jeddah before detonating the device. The official said the government was checking the reports of blasts in Qatif and Medina.

In the only one of the three attacks that appeared to have caused many casualties, a suicide bomber detonated a bomb near the security headquarters of the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, the second-holiest site in Islam.

Saudi-owned al-Arabiya television said an initial death toll from the Medina blast included three suicide bombers and two security forces officers.

A video sent to Reuters by a witness to the aftermath of the Medina bombing showed a large blaze among parked cars in the fading evening light, with a sound of sirens in the background. A picture sent to Reuters showed a burnt and bleeding man lying on a stretcher in a hospital.

Other pictures circulating on social media showed dark smoke billowing from flames near the Mosque of the Prophet, originally built in the 7th century by the Prophet Muhammad, who is buried there along with his first two successors.

In Qatif, an eastern city that is home to many members of the Shi’ite minority, at least one and possibly two explosions struck near a Shi’ite mosque.

Witnesses described body parts, apparently of a suicide bomber, in the aftermath.

A resident of the city reached by telephone said there were believed to be no casualties there apart from the attacker, as worshippers had already gone home to break their fasts. Civil defense forces were cleaning up the area and police were investigating, the resident said.

A video circulating on social media and purporting to show the aftermath of a Qatif blast showed an agitated crowd on a street, with a fire raging near a building, and a bloody body part lying on the ground. Reuters could not immediately verify the video.

Hours earlier a suicide bomber was killed and two people were wounded in a blast near the U.S. consulate in the kingdom’s second city Jeddah.

The Jeddah blast was the first bombing in years to attempt to target foreigners in the kingdom. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Islamic State has carried out a series of bombing and shooting attacks in Saudi Arabia since mid-2014 that have killed scores of people, mostly members of the Shi’ite Muslim minority and security services.

Police and groups of local volunteers increased security near mosques in Qatif after suicide bombings hit mosques in Shi’ite areas last year, killing dozens. Another suicide blast at a mosque used by security forces also killed 15 a year ago.

(Additional reporting by Sami Aboudi in Dubai; Writing by Peter Graff; editing by Anna Willard)

Iran-Saudi row threatens any OPEC deal

A gas flare on an oil production platform in the Soroush oil fields is seen alongside an Iranian flag in the Gulf

By Alex Lawler and Rania El Gamal

LONDON/DUBAI (Reuters) – OPEC’s thorniest dilemma of the past year – at least from a purely oil standpoint – is about to disappear.

Less than six months after the lifting of Western sanctions, Iran is close to regaining normal oil export volumes, adding extra barrels to the market in an unexpectedly smooth way and helped by supply disruptions from Canada to Nigeria.

But the development will do little to repair dialogue, let alone help clinch a production deal, when OPEC meets next week amid rising political tensions between arch-rivals Iran and oil superpower Saudi Arabia, OPEC sources and delegates say.

Earlier this year, Tehran refused to join an initiative to boost prices by freezing output but signaled it would be part of a future effort once its production had recovered sufficiently. OPEC has no supply limit, having at its last meeting in December scrapped its production target.

According to International Energy Agency (IEA) figures, Iran’s output has reached levels seen before the imposition of sanctions over its nuclear program. Tehran says it is not yet there.

But while Iran may be more willing now to talk, an increase in oil prices has reduced the urgency of propping up the market, OPEC delegates say. Oil has risen toward a more producer-friendly $50 from a 12-year low near $27 in January.

“I don’t think OPEC will decide anything,” a delegate from a major Middle East producer said. “The market is recovering because of supply disruptions and demand recovery.”

A senior OPEC delegate, asked whether the group would make any changes to output policy at its June 2 meeting, said: “Nothing. The freeze is finished.”

Within OPEC, Iran has long pushed for measures to support oil prices. That position puts it at odds with Saudi Arabia, the driving force behind OPEC’s landmark November 2014 refusal to cut supply in order to boost the market.

Sources familiar with Iranian oil policy see no sign of any change of approach by Riyadh under new Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih – who is seen as a believer in reform and low oil prices.

“It really depends on those countries within OPEC with a high level of production,” one such source said. “It does not seem that Saudi Arabia will be ready to cooperate with other members.”

 

HIGHER EXPORTS

Iran has managed to increase oil exports significantly in 2016 after the lifting of sanctions in January.

It notched up output of 3.56 million barrels of oil per day in April, the IEA said, a level last reached in November 2011 before sanctions were tightened.

Saudi Arabia produced a near-record-high 10.26 million barrels per day in April and has kept output relatively steady over the past year, its submissions to OPEC show.

Iran, according to delegates from other OPEC members, is unlikely to restrain supplies, given that it believes Saudi Arabia should cut back itself to make room for Iranian oil.

“Iran won’t support any freeze or cut,” said a non-Iranian OPEC delegate. “But Iran may put pressure on Saudi Arabia that they hold the responsibility.”

Saudi thinking, however, has moved on from the days when Riyadh cut or increased output unilaterally. Talks in Doha on the proposed output freeze by OPEC and non-OPEC producers fell through after Saudi insisted that Iran participate.

Indeed, differences between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which helped found the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries 56 years ago, over OPEC policy have made cooperation harder – to say nothing of more fundamental disagreements.

For more than a decade after oil crashed to $10 in 1997, the two set aside rivalries to manage the market and support prices, although they fell into opposing OPEC camps with Iran wanting high prices and Saudi more moderate.

Now, the Sunni-Shia conflicts setting Saudi Arabia and Iran at each other’s throats, particularly in Syria and Yemen, make the relationship between the two even more fraught.

The two disagree over OPEC’s future direction. Earlier in May, OPEC failed to decide on a long-term strategy as Saudi Arabia objected to Iran’s proposal that the exporter group aim for “effective production management”.

With that backdrop, ministers may be advised to keep expectations low, an OPEC watcher said.

“The only aspiration OPEC should have for its 2 June meeting is simply not to repeat the chaos of the Doha process,” said Paul Horsnell, analyst at Standard Chartered.

“A straightforward meeting with no binding commitments and, most importantly, no overt arguments would be the best outcome for ministers.”

(Reporting by Alex Lawler and Rania El Gamal; Editing by Dale Hudson)

Senate passes bill allowing Sept. 11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia

An American flag flies near the base of the destroyed World Trade Center in New York, in this file photo from September 11, 2001, taken after the collapse of the towers.

By Patricia Zengerle

(Reuters) – The U.S. Senate passed legislation on Tuesday that would allow survivors and relatives of those killed in the Sept. 11 attacks to file lawsuits seeking damages against the government of Saudi Arabia.

The legislation, known as the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or JASTA, passed in the Senate by unanimous voice vote.

If it passes the House of Representatives and is signed into law by U.S. President Barack Obama, JASTA would allow lawsuits to proceed in federal court in New York as lawyers try to prove that the Saudis were involved in the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The Saudis deny any involvement.

Islamist militants exploit chaos as combatants pursue peace in Yemen

Followers of Houthi movement

By Mohammed Ghobari and Noah Browning

CAIRO/DUBAI (Reuters) – Islamic State efforts to exploit chaos may have brought Saudi-backed forces and Iran-allied Houthis tentatively closer at peace talks in Yemen’s civil war, but a deal seems unlikely in time to avert collapse into armed, feuding statelets.

Ferocious conflict along Yemen’s northern border between Saudi Arabia and Iran-allied Ansurallah, a Shi’ite Muslim revival movement also called the Houthis, defied two previous attempts to seal a peace. But a truce this year and prisoner exchanges mean hopes for a third round of talks are higher.

The threat from an emerging common enemy may be galvanizing their efforts. Islamic State appears to be behind a dizzying uptick in suicide attacks and al Qaeda fighters continue to hold sway over broad swathes of the country that abuts Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said on Thursday the kingdom sought to prioritize fighting militants in Yemen over its desultory arm-wrestle with entrenched Houthi insurgents.

“Whether we agree or disagree with them, the Houthis are part of the social fabric of Yemen … The Houthis are our neighbors. Al Qaeda and Daesh are terrorist entities that must be confronted in Yemen and everywhere else,” Jubeir tweeted, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

Now largely stalemated, the conflict has killed at least 6,200 people – half of them civilians – and sent nearly three million people fleeing for safety.

Despite the relative lull during talks, hostility continues. Saudi Arabia has pounded its enemies with dozens of air strikes. Houthis have responded with two ballistic missile launches.

If the parties seize the opportunity, an unlikely new status quo may reign by which Houthis and Saudis depend on each other for peace.

“This could mean a massive re-ordering of Yemen’s political structure, and the conflict so far has already produced some strange bedfellows,” said Adam Baron, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

The Houthis ousted the internationally recognized government in 2014 in what it hailed as a revolution but which Sunni Gulf Arab countries decried as a coup benefiting Shi’ite rival Iran.

Pounding the Houthis and their allies in Yemen’s army with air strikes beginning on March of 2015, a Saudi-led alliance soon deployed ground troops and rolled back their enemies toward Sanaa, held by the Houthis.

A near-blockade imposed by the Saudi-led coalition and frontlines which ebb and flow across villages and towns have deprived nearly 20 of 25 million people of access to clean water and put yet more in need of some form of humanitarian aid.

“SURRENDER”

Of the countries where pro-democracy “Arab Spring” uprisings in 2011 ultimately led to outright combat, Yemen’s United Nations-sponsored peace process arguably shows the most promise.

Unlike with Libya and Syria, representatives of Yemen’s warring sides meet daily in Kuwait and argue over how to implement U.N. Security Council resolutions and share power.

But while keeping Yemen’s parties talking for this long was an accomplishment, getting them to live together in Sanaa and share power remains a distant dream.

Yemeni Foreign Minister Abdel-Malek al-Mekhlafi accused the Houthis of resisting a U.N. Security Council Resolution from last April to disarm and vacate main cities.

“There is a wide gap in the debate, we are discussing the return of the state … they are thinking only of power and demanding a consensual government,” he told Reuters.

Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdel-Salam said on his facebook page: “The solution in Yemen must be consensual political dialogue and not imposing diktats or presenting terms of surrender, this is unthinkable.”

But a diplomatic source in Kuwait said that through the fog of rhetoric, a general outline of a resolution has been reached.

“There is an agreement on the withdrawal from the cities and the (Houthi) handover of weapons, forming a government of all parties and preparing for new elections. The dispute now only centers around where to begin,” the source said.

FEUDING STATELETS

All parties will be aware the danger of a collapse into feuding statelets is growing. The Houthis are deepening control over what remains of the shattered state it seized with the capital in 2014.

Footage of the graduation ceremony of an elite police unit last week showed recruits with right arms upraised in an erect salute, barking allegiance not just to Yemen but to Imam Ali and the slain founder of the Houthi movement – a move critics say proves their partisan agenda for the country.

Meanwhile the Houthis’ enemies in the restive, once independent South agitate ever more confidently for self-rule.

Militiamen in Aden last week expelled on the back of trucks more than 800 northerners they said lacked proper IDs and posed a security risk.

The tranquility amid the gardens and burbling fountains of the Kuwaiti emir’s palace hosting the talks have not impressed residents of Yemen’s bombed-out cities, who despair whether armed groups can ever be reined in.

“All the military movements on the ground suggest the war will resume and that both parties are continuing to mobilize their fighters on the front lines,” said Fuad al-Ramada, a 50-year old bureaucrat in the capital Sanaa.

(Writing By Noah Browning; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Shift in Saudi oil thinking deepens OPEC split

OPEC logo is pictured at its headquarters in Vienna

By Dmitry Zhdannikov and Rania El Gamal

LONDON/DUBAI (Reuters) – As OPEC officials gathered this week to formulate a long-term strategy, few in the room expected the discussions would end without a clash. But even the most jaded delegates got more than they had bargained with.

“OPEC is dead,” declared one frustrated official, according to two sources who were present or briefed about the Vienna meeting.

This was far from the first time that OPEC’s demise has been proclaimed in its 56-year history, and the oil exporters’ group itself may yet enjoy a long life in the era of cheap crude.

Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s most powerful member, still maintains that collective action by all producers is the best solution for an oil market that has dived since mid-2014.

But events at Monday’s meeting of OPEC governors suggest that if Saudi Arabia gets its way, then one of the group’s central strategies – of managing global oil prices by regulating supply – will indeed go to the grave.

In a major shift in thinking, Riyadh now believes that targeting prices has become pointless as the weak global market reflects structural changes rather than any temporary trend, according to sources familiar with its views.

OPEC is already split over how to respond to cheap oil. Last month tensions between Saudi Arabia and its arch-rival Iran ruined the first deal in 15 years to freeze crude output and help to lift global prices.

These resurfaced at the long-term strategy meeting of the OPEC governors, officials who report to their countries’ oil ministers.

According to the sources, it was a delegate from a non-Gulf Arab country who pronounced OPEC dead in remarks directed at the Saudi representative as they argued over whether the group should keep targeting prices.

Iran, represented by its governor Hossein Kazempour Ardebili, has been arguing that this is precisely what OPEC was created for and hence “effective production management” should be one of its top long-term goals.

But Saudi governor Mohammed al-Madi said he believed the world has changed so much in the past few years that it has become a futile exercise to try to do so, sources say.

“OPEC should recognize the fact that the market has gone through a structural change, as is evident by the market becoming more competitive rather than monopolistic,” al-Madi told his counterparts inside the meeting, according to sources familiar with the discussions.

“The market has evolved since the 2010-2014 period of high prices and the challenge for OPEC now, as well as for non-OPEC (producers), is to come to grips with recent market developments,” al-Madi said, according to the sources.

ORCHESTRATION

For decades Saudi Arabia had a preferred oil price target and if it didn’t like the prevailing market level, it would try to orchestrate a production cut or increase in OPEC. It would contribute the lion’s share of the adjustment and forgive smaller and poorer members if they failed to comply with the group’s agreement.

Back in 2008, the late King Abdullah named $75 a barrel as the kingdom’s “fair” oil price, most likely after consultations with the long-serving oil minister Ali al-Naimi.

When the Saudis orchestrated the last output cut in 2008 – to support prices during the global economic crisis – oil jumped fairly quickly back above $100 from below $40. Later Riyadh again made known its price preference on a few occasions but in recent years it has effectively stopped sending any signals.

This follows the fundamental changes on oil markets. In the past five years, the development of unconventional oil production from U.S. shale deposits and other sources such as Canadian oil sands has made redundant the idea that crude is a scarce and finite resource. Russia, which is not an OPEC member, has also contributed to the ample global supply.

“NO FREE RIDERS”

Dispensing with price targets represents a massive change in Saudi thinking. This is now being driven largely by 31-year-old Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who took over as the ultimate decision maker of the country’s energy and economic policies last year.

When oil was viewed as scarce, the kingdom thought it had to maximize its long-term revenues even if that meant pumping fewer barrels and yielding market share to rival producers, according to several sources familiar with the Saudi thinking.

With the importance of oil declining, Riyadh has decided it is wiser to prioritize market share, the sources say. It believes it will be better off producing more at today’s low prices than reducing output, only to sell the oil for even less in the future as global demand ebbs.

On top of this, Riyadh has pressing short-term needs including tackling a budget deficit which hit 367 billion riyals ($97.9 billion) or 15 percent of gross domestic product in 2015.

“The oil industry is, relatively speaking, not a growth industry any more,” said one of the sources familiar with the Saudi views inside the OPEC governors’ meeting.

In the past, low oil prices used to push global demand much higher but today’s rising efficiency of motor vehicles, new technology and environmental policies have put a lid on growth.

Despite record low prices in the past year, demand is not expected to grow by more than 1 million barrels per day in 2016, just one percent of global demand.

One thing is guaranteed: the kingdom will not go back to the old pattern of cutting output any time soon to support prices for the benefit of all producers, Saudi sources say.

“The bottom line is that there will be no free riders any more,” al-Madi said at Monday’s meeting. “Some OPEC members should ‘walk the talk’ first,” he told his colleagues.

Even Riyadh’s rivals doubt it will perform any U-turn. “Saudi Arabia doesn’t give a damn about OPEC any more. They are after U.S. shale, Canadian oil sands and Russia,” a non-Gulf OPEC source said.

(Additional reporting by Alex Lawler; writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov; editing by David Stamp)

Saudi Minister confirms warning on proposed U.S. law on 911

The Tribute in Light installation is illuminated over lower Manhattan as seen from Brooklyn Bridge

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia has warned the United States that a proposed U.S. law that could hold the kingdom responsible for any role in the Sept 11, 2001, attacks would erode global investor confidence in America, its foreign minister said on Monday.

The minister, Adel al-Jubeir, speaking to reporters in Geneva after talks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, which mainly focused on Syria, denied that Saudi Arabia had “threatened” to withdraw investment from its close ally.

The New York Times reported last month that the Riyadh government had threatened to sell up to $750 billion worth of American assets should the U.S. Congress pass a bill that would take away immunity from foreign governments in cases arising from a “terrorist attack that kills an American on American soil”.

“We say a law like this would cause an erosion of investor confidence. But then to kind of say, ‘My God the Saudis are threatening us’ – ridiculous,” Jubeir said.

“We don’t use monetary policy and we don’t use energy policy and we don’t use economic policy for political purposes. When we invest, we invest as investors. When we sell oil, we sell oil as traders.”

Jubeir, pressed on whether the Saudia Arabia had suggested the law could affect its investment policies, said: “I say you can warn. What has happened is that people are saying we threatened. We said that a law like this is going to cause investor confidence to shrink. And so not just for Saudi Arabia, but for everybody.”

The New York Times, citing administration officials and congressional aides, said that the Obama administration had lobbied Congress to block passage of the bill, which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year.

“In fact what they are doing is stripping the principle of sovereign immunities which would turn the world for international law into the law of the jungle,” Jubeir said.

“That’s why the administration is opposed to it, and that’s why every country in the world is opposed to it.

“And then people say ‘Saudi Arabia is threatening the U.S. by pulling our investments’. Nonsense.”

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Richard Balmforth)